Calling All Copyright & Trademark Blogs

As you may know, I am trying to determine the top patent blogs on the Internet, and voting for the top patent blogs is currently underway.  The plan has always been to have some fun with this, maybe get some traffic coming to IPWatchdog.com, but most importantly to try and raise the profile of what we all are doing and contributing.  Anyone who reads IPWatchdog.com knows that from time to time I will stumble across a media report on an intellectual property issue, and then write about how wrong the popular press gets these stories.  Bad advice, interchangeably using the terms patent, copyright and trademark as if they are the same, and obviously demonstrating a lack of understanding really bother me.  If the popular press is getting this stuff wrong in an area that I know intimately, what are they getting wrong in areas I have no particular expertise in?  Alarming really!  I have long thought that the best commentary and analysis in the IP arena comes from blogs and websites maintained by IP professionals and attorneys, any part I can play in getting all our efforts recognized is something I am happy to do.

With this in mind, I would like to replicate what I am doing for patent blogs with copyright and trademark blogs.  I suspect that there are enough for each field that we can do this once for Copyright Blogs and again for Trademark Blogs.  After my failed individual attempt to identify all the most popular patent blogs (how could I have left out IPKat?) I opened up for nominations.  This brought to my attention a lot more blogs.  So with this in mind, I would like to hear for everyone regarding suggestions for inclusion in the copyright and trademark blog space.

Although I write occasionally about both copyrights and trademarks, IPWatchdog.com is presently patent dominated and, therefore, it will not be included in voting for either the copyright or trademark category.  What I am looking for is to try and create a process that focuses on the primary or dominant writings of the blog.  Then, if all continues to go well, at the end of the year do an omnibus effort to recognize all Intellectual Property Blogs.

My plan is as follows:

1. Compile a list of the top copyright and trademark blogs and then determine through the use of some objective metrics which blogs are most popular.
2. Conduct Internet voting in order to provide another baseline that will be factored into the final determination of the top copyright and trademark blogs. The polling will be such that 1 vote per computer can be cast.

With respect to objective criteria, while not perfect, Alexa is reliable and practically every site has an Alexa score.  I am on the lookout for other objective metrics, so if you know of any let me know.  Compete.com is good, but doesn’t have information on all blogs or websites.  Quantcast.com is excellent, but you need code embedded in your site to make this work, so not everyone has a Quantcast ranking.   There are various web traffic estimators that provide at least some information, but if you are not in the top 1,000,000 on Alexa they don’t seem to provide any information, useful or otherwise.  Technorati is proving to be impossible to use, has wild fluctuations and service outages that go for days and weeks at a time, thus I will not use Technorati again.

The Internet voting will ask two questions. First, which of the listed blogs is your favorite blog. Second, which of the listed blogs do you regularly read. Only one response will be allowed for the first question, but multiple responses will be allowed for the second question. One point will go to any blog receiving a vote. Presumably this should mean that the favorite blog will get 2 votes per respondent, while other blogs that are read will receive 1 vote per respondent.

The objective score will comprise 50% of the overall score, while the Internet voting will comprise 50% of the overall score.

My plan is to start with either copyright blogs or trademarks blogs at some point in July/August, and then move on to the other category in August/September.  If response is as good for these categories as for the patent category then we will do a year end Intellectual Property Blog contest sometime in the October to December time frame.

Let the nominations begin!